Abstract

Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) states that we understand abstract domains of knowledge such as mathematics, time or politics in terms of concrete physical domains such as space and movement. While CMT has been formulated based on purely linguistic evidence, experimental support for the theory is steadily accumulating. In this talk, I will review the current evidence for conceptual metaphors and discuss three recent experiments on three different metaphors. The first experiment is on the metaphor SIMILARITY IS PROXIMITY and demonstrates that things that are being described as similar to each other are placed closer to each other by participants in spatial tasks. The second experiment is on the metaphor QUANTITY IS SIZE and shows that mathematical operations such as addition and subtraction interact with size-based concepts. The last experiment is on the metaphor MORE IS UP, where we found that when people are asked to generate random numbers when looking upwards, they generate higher numbers than when looking downwards. Throughout the talk, I will highlight the importance of testing ideas from CMT, and I will show how experimental approaches can enrich and extend the theory.